How CupcakKe went from church poet to rap’s filthiest political wordsmith

A sensible lady as soon as stated, “Boy on boy, girl on girl, like who the fuck you like, fuck the world.”

That lady is CupcakKe, one among rap’s raunchiest stars and an enormous LGBTQ advocate in an business not all the time recognized for its acceptance of queerness. Within the area of simply three years, CupcakKe’s launched 4 studio albums – together with the sensible, freshly-pressed Eden – and dropped two large anthems for the queer group; LGBT and Crayons. The previous, a spotlight at her reside exhibits, was written as a approach to pay again the followers who’ve been most loyal to her all through her profession.

“Don’t judge a lesbian ‘cause she don’t want you back, man, judge one of the gays, they drag you from Z to A, and shout out to the bis, you ain’t gotta pick a side,” she spits over a club-ready beat, whereas the music video is splashed with each color of the rainbow, from drag queens making out with one another to femme boys twerking. It’s this dedication to equality that’s gained her such a devoted following, who she lovingly refers to as her Slurpers.

“When you realise you have a pretty big fanbase of LGBTQ people, then it’s like, ‘They support you, so why not show them you support them too?’,” she says. “Before I even had a career I had LGBTQ friends who I’d hang out with. They’re human. I look at them like a regular person, not, ‘Oh that’s somebody that’s part of the LGBTQ community’, it’s like, ‘Oh that’s another human being’. That’s just how I see it. Everyone likes who they like.”

Her social media savviness (she proudly proclaims she hasn’t gone a day away from Twitter since her profession started) has captured the creativeness of ‘stan Twitter’ in a means no different artist has completed earlier than her. A fast look at any of CupcakKe’s posts brings up frenzied replies like “slay me queen” and “my wig decided to go on a world tour”. She embraced it on Maintain Hoes Alive, which noticed her shout out pop music discussion board ATRL and boast of getting “stans all the way to Japan”. It’s exhausting to consider one other artist so in contact with the present state of youth web tradition, and it’s key to her reputation. “I’ll just be like, ‘I’m brushing my teeth’, and they’ll be like, ‘Queen of toothpaste, toothbrushes are shook’,” she laughs. “Some people will tag me and be like, ‘I wanna eat CupcakKe’s asshole’. It’s funny. I know them like the back of my hand, and I love them.”

Simply as legendary as her lyrics are her photograph captions, which see her apply her inimitable sense of humour and unapologetic sexuality to the world round her. “If only I can find a dick as thick as this tree,” she writes on one submit. “Blonde wig like Beyoncé since I just swallowed his destiny’s child,” she jokes on one other. If it appears easy, that’s as a result of it’s. “I’m an artist, so I’m great with words,” she says. “I like to look at the background of the photo and come up with fun things. It’s like if someone says, ‘Here’s a word, rap off it’, when you’re an artist it’s just easy. That’s why people are intrigued by my Twitter. It’s pure comedy. It’s brilliant.”

The CupcakKe we see on social media is only one of a number of personas the rapper has adopted. “I’m three stars in one,” she says. “Elizabeth is the shy side of me, she can write the poetry and make tears come down your eyes; CupcakKe makes you wanna come over and have sex; and then you’ve got Marilyn MonHOE, she’s the Twitter troll, she makes you feel like you can say whatever the fuck you want, and ain’t nobody gonna stop you.” It’s Elizabeth who speaks to us over the telephone, and like most of the world’s most outrageous stars, when she’s away from the digital camera, she’s surprisingly reserved.

CupcakKe wears prime by Dis Grace, earrings by Laruicci

CupcakKe first started exploring her expertise for wordplay as a church poet. When she was in her early teenagers, a fellow worshipper instructed that she took a change in course. “Someone in the church was basically like, ‘Why don’t you turn your poetry into rapping, you could make money off that’. So the next day I did it, and I ain’t ever turned back since,” she recollects. From there, CupcakKe lived on a food regimen of rap legends like Lil’ Kim, 50 Cent, Lil’ Wayne and Trina. Her first single Vagina, which got here out shortly after she turned 18, couldn’t have been additional from her church roots – in it, she compares her “pussy” to “Niagara Falls” and guarantees to “slurp that dick ’til it cum”. The day after it dropped, the music video went viral on WorldStarHipHop, and rocketed her to web fame.

“I’ve been rapping since I was 14, so that transition was me wanting to do a sexual song for once. It’s just a part of growing up,” she explains. Vagina was shortly adopted by different intercourse bops together with Deepthroat, Doggy Type and Greatest Dick Sucker. However not everybody was a fan. “You know, the hip-hop world is like, ‘I just wanna hear drill music and drill music only’, so they don’t understand the other side of my music, especially the sexual side of me. But everyone has that deep inside them, it just takes a matter of time to break it out, and the right person to break it out… and I’m that right person.”

Her sexually specific music might have earned her viral success, however to cross CupcakKe off as a novelty act can be a dire injustice. A deep dive into her already-hefty again catalogue sees the rapper deal with a seemingly infinite listing of social justice points together with racism, police brutality, physique positivity, and youngster abuse. Does she want individuals would focus extra on her political music? “Definitely.” However she’s at peace with the truth that she’ll all the time have critics. “Some people don’t like my music, and I respect that. Not everyone’s gotta like my music.”

CupcakKe wears full look by Reconstruct Collective

By the point her debut album Audacious arrived in 2016, CupcakKe was receiving consideration from main document labels fascinated by signing one among rap’s hottest new properties. However she turned all of them down, selecting as an alternative to stay a very unbiased artist. “I’m good,” she explains. “I make a lot of money at the end of the day. Why would I make 25 cents when I can make a full dollar?” One assembly with Atlantic Data, residence to chart-topping artists like Cardi B and Rita Ora, left a very bitter style in her mouth. In 2017, British grime artist Woman Leshurr revealed that she’d been provided $250,000 by Atlantic to diss Nicki Minaj, which she promptly turned down. It inspired CupcakKe to open up about her personal experiences with the label.

“I got that when I sat down with Atlantic Records. They didn’t specifically say it, but their words were, ‘We want you to compete’, and it just happened to be with Nicki Minaj,” she says, though she stresses that she doesn’t need individuals to take that have out of context. “I didn’t turn them down just because of that, but I definitely turned them down because their deal was shitty. They told me to come in and record some music, and LGBT happened to be one of the songs I recorded, but I felt like they were more interested in, ‘We wanna get this dumb-ass person on our label so we can get some of her money’, rather than, ‘We wanna help her out’. “I was there for a couple hours, and most of the time they were texting on their phones. It was just ignorant. All I’ll say is, the shit they offered me, I already had that in my bank account, so why would I need to take that? That’s why I didn’t sign the deal overall.” So what wouldn’t it take for her to signal with a label? “At this point, probably 10 million,” she deadpans. “That’s not a joke. I’m dead serious. Literally. 10 million.”

In fact, being unbiased comes with struggles, however CupcakKe takes them in her stride. “I do everything myself,” she proudly states. “The only downside is that it gets a little stressful. You don’t really have any free time, because you’re so busy working, but I’d rather be working non-stop with a fat bank account than be hanging out with friends and letting a manager or a record label screw me over, and I’m only seeing 25 cents out of a dollar.” She encourages different musicians to comply with in her footsteps. “I think art should be independent. Everyone gets turned off from being independent because they think, ‘I’ve been rapping for two months and ain’t nobody notice me’. I was rapping for years before anybody noticed me. It takes time, this shit don’t happen overnight. But you can be the biggest star without a label. Look at Chance The Rapper.”

CupcakKe wears jacket by Adam Selman, necklace by Laruicci

Regardless of the enjoyable and carefree nature of her public persona, CupcakKe lately revealed to her followers by way of a collection of tweets that she was “at a very low and depressed point” in her life and was battling with private demons. It’s one thing she’s been coping with for some time now. “It’s not just me. Everyone at some point in their lives is gonna deal with depression and anxiety,” she says, stressing the significance of speaking about these points. “That’s just my way of dealing with it. I like to let people know what’s going on with me.”

Hundreds of followers – together with rap legend Missy Elliott – provided phrases of consolation over social media, encouraging her to pull by means of. Whereas many celebrities expertise psychological well being points due to the fixed consideration, CupcakKe says it retains her going .“It definitely helps, because I say to myself, ‘You’ve gotta get your shit together and get out of this depressed place because you’ve got all these people looking up to you who want to see you do better’. When I’m down, they’re down, and when I’m happy, they’re happy. So that definitely helps.” It’s a mutual help community, because the followers share their very own struggles over social media and on the rapper’s exhibits. “They tell me stories about everything they’ve been through, and I listen with an open ear,” she says.

Final yr, CupcakKe held her first headline tour throughout the UK, with a number of stops together with London, Manchester and Birmingham. The exhibits themselves have been sometimes low-key affairs; image a sea of followers (many nonetheless of their teenagers) moaning alongside in unison to the sound of fellatio pop bop CPR whereas their idol simulates masturbation on stage, and also you’ve received the correct picture. However regardless of promoting out venues, and performing to hundreds of adoring followers, CupcakKe admits her favorite a part of visiting the UK was “getting on the plane and going back home”.

“I know that’s kind of harsh to say, and I mean that with no bad vibes,” she says. “In the UK, every city I went to, the crowds were amazing and their energy was like no other. Now, the bad part, which made me want to go back home, was that I did not feel welcome. I walked through a couple of airports, because I was on tour, and they looked at me crazy, like, ‘What are you doing here?’ It was ridiculous. And everywhere we went, we didn’t really see any black people. So I don’t know if it was racism, or if they were just curious. I understand we were the only black people around, but we’re human. You ain’t better than me, and I ain’t better than you. That’s how I look at everybody. But they did not welcome us at the airports, they did not welcome us walking around their stores. At all. Would I go back? Definitely, to see the fans. But to go to the stores and the airports, with how people treated us? Nah.”

CupcakKe wears jacket by Michael Kors, earrings by Laruicci

Following her journey to the UK – and provided that her second studio album was brilliantly named Queen Elizabitch – speak (naturally) turns to England’s personal monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. “I don’t know if we would get along, because me and old people have nothing in common,” she laughs. “The only thing me and old people have in common is they have no teeth and that’s how I act when I’m sucking dick – like I got no teeth.”

With 4 studio albums, two mixtapes, and a world tour already beneath her belt on the age of 21, the longer term is rife with prospects for CupcakKe. So the place can she go subsequent? “I don’t have an end goal, I’m just enjoying the music,” she says. “Even if all the fans leave me today, I love to write, I look at it as an outlet. I’m just enjoying myself, crafting new material every day and making it as great as it can be. I do wanna sell out arenas, I wanna get to stadiums, just like every other artist is trying to do, I wanna be a big deal. But like I said, if it doesn’t happen, I’m just enjoying the music.”